Recipes that Suck: 2008

[nliedel]

I've been searching for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe for a few years now. I watched the Good Eats cookie show maybe fifteen times in the last couple of years. I puled the recipe for the soft chocolate chip cookies and made them. Yes, soft, but they puffed up so much they looked like little balloons and tasted off. I used good ingrediants, but the problem was still between the fridge and the oven, I'm sure, meaning me.

I'm still analyzing.

[BRM]

I tried the fish skewers from the Spring 2007 issue of Art Culinaire (p 67). Kind of whitefish mousse on skewers, steamed and then and wrapped in prociutto. I used fresh tilapia - the recipe simply called for white fish filets. I am sure that this type of dish could take some practice but the result was so far from being edible that I don't think I would bother. It was very rubbery and not very flavorable.

[ruthcooks]

If you are looking for something quick to fix for supper, you don't have time to order Niman Ranch pork chops, now do you?

That's one reason I steer away from recipes of famous chefs. They have permanent access to prime ingredients, and I'm sure they don't test or re-test their recipes with supermarket ingredients that are the norm for most home cooks.

None of my recent failures comes to mind right now.

May I suggest a name for the 2009 version of this thread?

"Son of Sucky."

[Toliver]

The "Crunchy Baked Pork Chops" from Cook's Illustrated Jan/Feb 2008 !!!!

I was really surprised by this.  Usually their recipes are, while maybe not cutting edge, good, solid home-cooking comfort food.  This was AWFUL.  At least in my hands.  Maybe my cooking karma and Kitchen Gods and Goddesses were off duty that day.  I followed the recipe to a "T".  Used good pork.  Made the bread crumbs from home-baked bread.  The chops were dry, overcooked, chewy and flavorless.  The breading fell off the chops in complete sheets as soon as I moved them when they were done.  The breaded chops stuck to the baking rack.  I tossed about 10 bucks worth of loin pork chops because these were so awful.  Luckily the sides I made were good (and even more luckily I hadn't served these to guests.....oy !) because I couldn't finish even one.  Yes, the breading *was* crunchy, but it didn't really do much for me when it wasn't attached to the chops.

The dogs were happy, though.   

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I had to take a look at the recipe onlline.

Did you brine the pork chops or were they already brined?

Also, (just asking) did you do the three coatings - flour then egg mixture then crumbs? If the flour step was skipped then I could see why the coating fell off. But since you said you followed the recipe exactly, then there has to be another reason. In frying, if the coating isn't dry it can come off of the meat during the frying. But in baking, this shouldn't happen unless there's a lot of moisture in the meat (or it gets steamed).

The recipe calls for a heckuva hot oven! I can't imagine cooking the chops 17 to 25 minutes in a 425°F oven. No wonder it turned out dry. Did you cook the chops until the recommended temperature was reached or did you go by time?

Aside from the brining, any flavoring in the recipe is in the crumb coating. The only thing I would recommend would have been to (ala Anna's suggested tweak for my problem recipe) would be to up all of the flavorings (it calls for 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese...for an entire cookie sheet of bread crumbs? Doesn't that sound skimpy?).

[phatj]

A Mexican chicken "lasagna" (mental note, don't mix cultures....lasagna isn't, and will never be, Mexican).  From another one of those embarassing little cookbooks at the supermarket check-out.  You know my dirty little secret now, I buy these.  Frequently.  Sometimes I hit gems, most times I hit, well, not gems.

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I don't know about that particular recipe, but I've made a "Mexican lasagna" that I like quite a lot. I know lasagna isn't Mexican, of course, but hey, I'm neither Mexican nor Italian so it doesn't offend me.

What was wrong with the recipe?

[purplewiz]

Fontina Stuffed Veal Meatballs, Food and Wine, Feb. 2008.

I admit to making two substitutions: first, finding ground veal around here is like finding hen's teeth (and costs more), so I used ground beef of a similar fat percentage. Second, something was VERY wrong with the fontina I'd bought - it was nasty and bitter and inedible. So I had to make a last minute substitution for Jarlsberg because it was all that was available at the time. It's a very good thing I taste tested the cheese or I would have had to throw the whole mess out. It was that bad.

But that shouldn't have given me meatballs that fell apart, cheese leaked all over, and honestly, didn't have much flavor. They weren't inedible, just kind of ugly, but for that amount of work, they sure weren't worth it. I'll stick with my own meatball recipe.

But there was a silver lining: the simple tomato sauce part of the recipe was excellent and I've used it again.

Marcia.

[Pierogi]

The dogs were happy, though.    

I had to take a look at the recipe onlline.

Did you brine the pork chops or were they already brined?

Also, (just asking) did you do the three coatings - flour then egg mixture then crumbs?

The recipe calls for a heckuva hot oven! I can't imagine cooking the chops 17 to 25 minutes in a 425°F oven.

...up all of the flavorings (it calls for 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese...for an entire cookie sheet of bread crumbs? Doesn't that sound skimpy?).

Ohhhhhhhh Toliver !!! I brined (after first determining that brining was, indeed necessary, that the chops hadn't been, um, "enhanced". Actually the were probably in the brine about 10 minutes longer than the recipe called for (doing other prep work and figured it was OK since the chops were a bit thicker than called for). *THEN* I patted and patted and patted with paper towels to dry those suckers off. Then I floured, and egged and crumbed. Then I sprayed the grid rack (much to the detriment of my baking pan and the chagrin of its owner, moi, since the spray cooking oil junk left that nasty residue it leaves at high temp.....). Then I checked the temp after the minimum time, again the chops were a bit thicker than called for, but they were spot on in temp.

The breading was actually the BEST part of the dish ! It was plenty flavorful, and I bet if it had stuck to the darn chops, and the chops weren't the texture of balsa wood, it would've been tasty. I actually do a pretty similar dish with chicken breasts that I love, so I figured this was a slam dunk.

As I said, happy dogs ! Very happy dogs, with very full-of-pork-loin-chops-tummies. Which is *not* a bad thing.

[Pierogi]

A Mexican chicken "lasagna" (mental note, don't mix cultures....lasagna isn't, and will never be, Mexican). 

I don't know about that particular recipe, but I've made a "Mexican lasagna" that I like quite a lot. I know lasagna isn't Mexican, of course, but hey, I'm neither Mexican nor Italian so it doesn't offend me.

What was wrong with the recipe?

OK, maybe that was just a wee bit harsh. I actually *DO* make a "Mexican Lasagna" using ground beef and corn tortillas that's pretty good, and I get a craving for it every now and then.

You know phatj, I don't honestly remember (hey, it was more than 30 seconds ago....most days I'm lucky if I remember where I live). Seriously, I think it was the seasoning. I just found the notes in my kitchen journal and it was something along the lines of "mexican chix lasagna, awful !" I also vaugely remember ditching what was left of the dish after I'd had the first go 'round of it. It has to be pretty bad for me not to want to even attempt it for a left-over lunch. I sort of want to say maybe it used flour tortillas instead of corn, and they disintegrated into the sauce..........?

[Wine and Food tube]

I'd have to say the WORST thing i ever ate was when my boyfriend tried to impress me...

All i know is that he came out of the kitchen with shrimp preseneted in a lettace leaf, points for presentation.

But i tried to put on a brave face but i had to spit ti out!!

Here's the ingrediants.

Shrimp(well we call them prawns in Australia), chutney, cashews, peanut butter, raw onion all in a lettace leaf.

I couldn't eat it so to save face he ate the entire thing!! I still don't leave him alone in the kitchen.

[curlywurlyfi]

There's a recipe for lamb + apricot stew that has featured in lots of UK cookbooks, the one I've got is Claire MacDonald's Suppers, I think (not being in front of my bookshelf I can't be certain) - this recipe is not dissimilar. I've made it, friends have served it to me - and it's just awful. Thin flavourless broth, grey meat, overpoweringly cinnamony. It does not improve overnight either (heinous sin of casseroles!) And yet I see it reproduced everywhere! Why??

[SuzySushi]

There's a recipe for lamb + apricot stew that has featured in lots of UK cookbooks, the one I've got is Claire MacDonald's Suppers, I think (not being in front of my bookshelf I can't be certain) - this recipe is not dissimilar. I've made it, friends have served it to me - and it's just awful. Thin flavourless broth, grey meat, overpoweringly cinnamony. It does not improve overnight either (heinous sin of casseroles!) And yet I see it reproduced everywhere! Why??

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Sounds like they left out the crucial step of browning the lamb after it was coated with spices. I have a Moroccan recipe for a lamb and apricot tagine and it's delicious.

[chappie]

This is not from 2008, but Cooks Illustrated years ago (maybe 2000 or '01) had a recipe for scallion pasta, in which you sliced and cooked in oil several bunches of scallions, then tossed with spaghetti. Maybe there was some garlic and red pepper flake, too, topped with parmesan at the end.

It was terrible. Far too oniony for anyone at the table's tastes. I tried to pretend I liked it for about 10 minutes, but needless to say there were untouched leftovers that wound up getting pitched. I went back over the recipe to see if I'd followed it to the letter, and I had.

[kbjesq]

It's usually pretty hard to screw up macaroni and cheese, but the most awful recipe that I have prepared in recent times was the "Potluck Macaroni and Cheese" from Cook's Country. It was vile! Inedible! I can't believe that it passed the recipe-testers at Cook's Illustrated.

I should have been suspicious since the recipe includes American cheese and evaporated milk (supposedly to "stabilize" the cheese sauce) in vast quantities. But relying on my faith in CI, I made it anyway (a huge, potluck-sized batch) and served it to some very unfortunate guests.

I wish that I could blame the outcome on some modifications on my part, but no, I made it exactly as directed. Blech!!!

[Bella S.F.]

Has anyone else tried the Fontina Stuffed Veal Meatballs from Feb. '08 's Food and Wine, that purplewiz made? I had that on the list to make, (It's hard to resist meatballs!) Any other results?

Edited April 11, 2008 by Bella S.F. (log)